Instilling the desire to help others in your child

Pastor Jimmy Bartz describes ways that parents can encourage their children to be more service-oriented
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Instilling the desire to help others in your child

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People ask me how do you instill the desire to help in your child. How do you cultivate a sense of service or gratitude or compassion within the context of your family? And what I would say practically is all of those areas, those virtuous areas, are like muscles, and they need to be trained. So if you want to create a virtuous, helping, or service-oriented child, you have to give them opportunities to practice it. You know, maybe we practice it at home. Big brother might need to learn to help little sister climb the stool and put toothpaste on her toothbrush. Or maybe as your children get a little bit older we move them into opportunities for volunteering at - we run a program called Laundry Love where you can help homeless people get their laundry done at no cost to them, once a month. So exposing them to a variety of areas where they can add service, and then be praised for that service. We all know, we all have some sense, that you get more than you give. That's how it works. So we want to provide opportunities for our kids to really experience that reality.

Pastor Jimmy Bartz describes ways that parents can encourage their children to be more service-oriented

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Jimmy Bartz

Priest

Jimmy serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Prior to coming to Jackson, he was the founder and priest at Thad’s, an emergent Episcopal Church in the Santa Monica, California, in the Diocese of Los Angeles. He has also served as the Campus Missioner at the University of Texas in Austin, at All Saints’ in Austin, Texas, and All Saints’ Parish in Beverly Hills, California. He is a graduate the University of Texas at Austin and Virginia Theological Seminary. Presently, he serves as the Chair of the Board of the Episcopal Evangelism Society, and in years past has worked with Red Bull High Performance teaching athletes spiritual disciplines, with Naval Special Warfare working to create systems for character development within special operations teams, and was a speaker at TEDx, Venice Beach.
Married to Cindy and dad to Jas and Jade, the Bartz family loves to spend time outside mountaineering, skiing, fly-fishing, hunting and surfing.  Jimmy is currently writing a book on the spirituality of risk.

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Transcription: 
People ask me how do you instill the desire to help in your child. How do you cultivate a sense of service or gratitude or compassion within the context of your family? And what I would say practically is all of those areas, those virtuous areas, are like muscles, and they need to be trained. So if you want to create a virtuous, helping, or service-oriented child, you have to give them opportunities to practice it. You know, maybe we practice it at home. Big brother might need to learn to help little sister climb the stool and put toothpaste on her toothbrush. Or maybe as your children get a little bit older we move them into opportunities for volunteering at - we run a program called Laundry Love where you can help homeless people get their laundry done at no cost to them, once a month. So exposing them to a variety of areas where they can add service, and then be praised for that service. We all know, we all have some sense, that you get more than you give. That's how it works. So we want to provide opportunities for our kids to really experience that reality.